The Melbourne Cup is the richest two-mile handicap race in the world and the biggest event on Australia’s racing calendar. Here’s the 2017 Melbourne Cup start time, as well as the times for every race during Australia’s biggest day on the racing calendar.

As per tradition, the race will be run on the first Tuesday in November at 3pm (AEDT), which, in 2017, is November 7. The distance of the race is, as always, 3200m at the Flemington racecourse.

While the $6.2 million Group 1 Melbourne Cup is the main attraction and the pinnacle of the racing industry in Australia, there’s still plenty of other action across the day with nine other races to be run.

While the exact start and finish times on the day tend to change around due to the unpredictability of race length, horse behaviour, and other factors, the whole day should be about seven hours from the start of the first race to the end of the last.

The first race is scheduled to start at 11am (AEDT) with roughly 40-minute intervals between every race throughout the day. There will, however, be an extended interval either side of the Melbourne Cup itself.

In between races 6 and 7, there will be a longer break, as mentioned, to introduce the jockeys and horses for the Cup, as well as the singing of the national anthem just before the horses head into the barriers.

Group l racing is the key focus at Doomben and Morphettville this Saturday with Redzel and In Her Time and clashing in the Doomben 10,000, while Weir and Lane are looking to continue their purple patch via Leicester in the South Australian Derby.

Group 1 racing in dual states always makes for a great Saturday, and that’s what we have this weekend with the Doomben 10,000 the feature up in Brisbane, and the South Australian Derby highlighting the card in Adelaide.

Recently, I wrote an article suggesting that rugby league superstar Johnathan Thurston should retire now rather than at year’s end, so as to quit while he is ahead. The same could be argued about Winx.